Origin

Origin was designed as a serial hybrid: a compact generator would produce the electricity, and electric motors would do all the flying, which is what would let it lift off vertically and still cruise efficiently over long distances. Fixed-wing efficiency where it counts, vertical take-off where it's useful, and foldable wings so the whole aircraft shrinks to a parkable footprint on the ground. The full hybrid powertrain was still ahead of us when the company wound down; the full-scale prototype was the airframe and the systems in progress, not yet a flying hybrid.

Under the skin, we engineered more than most people expect from a team our size: our own direct-drive electromechanical actuators (EMAs) to replace heavier, more complex hydraulics, and a low-cost composite process (light resin transfer moulding) that let a tiny team produce full-scale aircraft parts without an industrial budget.

On sustainability, the plan was net-zero flight using e-Fuels, synthetic fuels made with renewable energy. e-Fuels have since become rightly debated, mostly because they've been used as an excuse to keep combustion cars alive. But the point that still holds is the architecture: a serial-hybrid drivetrain doesn't care where its energy comes from. e-Fuels were our lead option; the same drive adapts just as well to a hydrogen fuel cell, or to whatever wins next.

The original Atlas Aero arc eventually ran its course, and in 2022 I stepped away. I later sold the AtlasAero name and branding; it is now used for a separate line of electric paraglider-propulsion systems, unrelated to my work.

What I carried out of it matters more than how it ended. Origin taught me how to turn an audacious technical vision into something fundable, buildable and public on almost no resources, lessons that proved genuinely valuable when I went on to co-create my next company.